Residential Institutions
Dail Éireann — 2021-12-03
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Holly Cairns (SD), Cork South-West

I agree with the Minister that no amount of money could compensate for it, but €5,000 is an insulting amount. One would get more in a compensation claim for a slip or a fall. The Department ran a consultation process inviting survivors to participate and many of them found the strength to do so in good faith. Why then were so many of their recommendations for redress ignored? The survivors called for an immediate interim payment, enhanced pension or periodic payments and additional sums, based on separate categories of harm suffered. All that was ignored and none of them features in the scheme. The interdepartmental group's report cruelly dismisses some of them. Most disgracefully for this horrific topic, the perspective of civil servants is being given greater weight than that of survivors. Again, the State is deciding what happens and what is best for them, ignoring what they said.
This was clearly an actuarial exercise, more concerned with budgets than trauma, acknowledgement of human rights violations or providing justice for survivors. Again, their voices have been ignored. The redress scheme is informed more by the opinion of civil servants than the experience of survivors. How can we stand over it in good conscience?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-12-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:55+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-12-03